Traffic engineers have told a tribunal that the original traffic report for Johnny Roso's new apartment building on Northbourne Avenue overstated the amount of traffic the building would create.
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Traffic engineer Graeme Shoobridge said assumptions behind the initial traffic modelling for apartments on the site were "conservative" and had overstated the traffic impact on neighbouring residential streets.
The North Canberra Community Council has launched an appeal in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal against the development application approved for the Mulberry apartment building.
Geoff Davidson, who has launched the appeal on the community council's behalf, told the tribunal cumulative traffic flows on to Dooring Street had not been properly considered as part of the development's approval.
Graeme Shoobridge, who prepared a traffic assessment report for Art Group in response to the tribunal proceedings, said the original SMEC traffic report lodged as part of the development application added the traffic impact of the development to a model that already assumed increased development in the area.
Chris Coath, who prepared a separate traffic assessment for the ACT Planning and Land Authority, said he broadly agreed with Mr Shoobridge's assessment of the original report.
Mr Shoobridge said the SMEC report had relied on the most up to date traffic information available to its traffic engineers at the time, but they were not aware of traffic growth assumed between 2016 and 2031 in the Canberra Strategic Traffic Model.
"The level of background growth is assumed to be included in the [traffic] model, however this does not affect the analysis that all additional generated traffic [from the apartment building] has been included in the SMEC assessment," Mr Shoobridge said.
But the report added the traffic generated by the proposed apartment building to a model with included assumptions about traffic growth in the area, he said.
Mr Davidson gave the tribunal a map he had created to show what he said were cumulative traffic effects along Northbourne Avenue and neighbouring streets.
Philip Walker, SC, who appeared for Art Group Nominees, questioned the relevance of Mr Davidson's map, which Mr Walker said made unreliable assumptions about future developments along the Northbourne Avenue corridor.
Mr Davidson said the new development would take the Macarthur Avenue and Wakefield Avenue intersection with Northbourne Avenue over capacity, and the map helped illustrate the total traffic impact in the area.
Senior tribunal member Graeme Trickett also raised questions on Tuesday about whether the planned development met other area requirements.
Mr Trickett pointed to the maximum height of the planned buildings, the shadow modelling, setbacks, commercial unit ceiling heights and the use of glass in facades of the building, which was conditionally approved in November.
The hearing continues.
